Two striped wingbacks faced a settee adjacent to a large fireplace with a mantle that was a work of art in its own right. Intricate scrolling woodwork facing that swept all the way to the ceiling. A large carpet kept the wooden floors from chilling the rooms which were heated by vents that Emmy assumed led to a boiler somewhere. The air forced through the venting was warm but damp and did little more than cut the worst of the chill. Thankfully, fires burned brightly in this room and her bedroom. She ate her breakfast while pacing the space holding the plate in front of her but finally choose a chaise near what was one of the few windows available in the room to sit down and relax in. The castle had been built for defense, she recalled. The few windows to the outside were very small. These in the sitting room faced the side of the keep she had visited this morning while her bedroom cornered the building to the same side and back of the castle overlooking the sound.
Although, she tried to read one of the books she had picked up at the airport, Emmy’s mind kept wandering helplessly back to Connor again and again. Should she apologize for deliberately goading him? Should she just let it go? Where was he? What did he do to keep busy all day? Emmy spent most of her morning in her room with her book, but could not refrain from appearing from time to time to inquire about the laird’s whereabouts. When asked, the butler, Chilton, told her the laird gone riding, gone into Craignure or anywhere elsewhere. ‘Rather than stay here and face his issues,’ Emmy thought.
Morning turned to afternoon. Margo, the maid Dory assigned to her, offered to bring her a tray to her room for luncheon. Accepting, Emmy felt as she, too, were hiding out rather than facing the mysterious nineteenth century outside the doors. Garnering her courage, she finally begged Margo for a tour of the castle. Half of the second floor was occupied by bedroom suites with more on the third floor and servants quarters and nurseries on the fourth. There was a small family parlor as well on each of these floors. The second floor also housed a large library. In all the rooms the outer windows were small, but for those that faced the inner courtyard, they were larger allowing more light into some of the main rooms.
On the main floor were the drawing rooms – large and small –parlor, chapel, the laird’s office, billiards room, dining room, morning room and kitchens. The kitchens, Margo told her, had once been housed in a separate building but the restoration of the castle had seen them moved inside to the first floor.
Like the main hall, all the rooms were large and luxurious, almost too formal in reflection to the medieval skin of the castle. Rich carpets covered the tile and wood floors. Inlaid patterns bordered the rooms. The furnishings were all beautifully carved or gilded and upholstered in lush velvets. Draperies were velvets as well with ornate fringes along the edges. They were thick so they could block the cold air from emanating through the windows in the colder months. A logical idea, though Emmy had never seriously considered the practical applications of window treatments before. With the energy efficient windows of her time, who needed to?
It was overall an amazing example of Victorian architecture and décor. None of the museums she’d ever been to had shown the level of richness and opulence this period was clearly capable of. But for some reason, she just didn’t feel that it suited Connor well. Of course she had only just met him, but still…it gave her something to think about.
Emmy thanked Margo for the tour and was grateful of her offer to build up the fire when they returned to Emmy’s rooms. The afternoon had turned chilly and rain slapped once again on the windows. An array of clothing had been laid out in her bedroom, from Mrs. MacLean, Margo informed her. Dorcas, Emmy assumed. Margo left her alone and Emmy resumed her place on the chaise near the fire. She tried once again to focus on her book, but as the warmth of the room rose and the previous day’s travel set in, Emmy slipped off into slumber.
It was with some surprise that Connor found Heather asleep on the chaise in the sitting room shared by the earl and countess’ rooms. For some reason he had expected her to be hiding out in her rooms as she had done the day they married, hesitant to face him after a long day in his company. Lowering himself onto a small ottoman near the chaise, Connor studied Heather as she slept. She was reclined in the chaise, one bare foot tucked up under her other leg. She wore spectacles today. They were dark framed in tortoiseshell, he believed. Narrow in height and wide across giving her a studious air even in sleep. He wondered if she needed them all the time or only wore them for reading.
Reaching over, he gently removed the glasses and rescued her fallen book placing them together on a nearby table. There a glass held melting ice which he assumed had previously been her odd libation of tea over ice. He wondered again what the little pink packets had held. Perhaps they were medication of some sort. Perhaps powders for headaches or illness. He knew almost nothing about her, he realized. Despite their new attraction, she was as much a
